Print numbered tickets in Word | Raffle Ticket Creator

Printable numbered tickets in Word 2007: step-by-step instructions

You'll create a document with several raffle tickets on each page, as many as you need, and each ticket will have a unique number. In other words: a template of printable numbered tickets.

Step 1. Create your basic numbered raffle ticket template in Word

Open Word and create a new document and create one raffle ticket. You want to make it about the right size so that you can fit four tickets on the page. Leave space for the ticket numbers, which you'll add in a minute. Something like this:

Then maybe add some color and design to it:

Step 2 Create a single page of tickets

Once you are happy with your basic layout, copy everything three times so you have a page of four tickets. At this point, they won't be numbered tickets just yet, you will add the numbers in a moment:

Step 3 - Create a list of numbers, in Excel

Open Excel and create a new workbook. In cell A1, type the number "1" (without quotes) (or another number, if you want to start your numbering from a different number):

Now click the tiny black square in the bottom right of that cell, keep your mouse button clicked and drag down for as many rows as you need raffle tickets:

... all the way down to (say) 500 rows (to give you 500 unique ticket numbers):

(If you prefer using the keyboard, rather than the mouse, then do this instead of dragging down: select cell A2, hit CTRL+C to copy, then select cell A3 and use SHIFT+PageDown to select all the way down to row 500. Then hit CTRL+V to paste.)

Now save your spreadsheet somewhere you can find it again, and close Excel.

Navigate to the Excel spreadsheet of numbers which you created earlier, and open it. On the dialog box which appears, uncheck the box 'First row of data contains column headers' and Click 'OK':

Now put your cursor at the point where you want the ticket number to appear on the ticket.

Click on Insert Merge Field, and something like 'M_1' will appear as a clickable item below the 'Insert Merge Field' button. That's a field name, representing your ticket number:

Click that, and a placeholder will appear where your cursor was, which will later insert the ticket number at that point. Do that twice for each ticket (once for the counterfoil, once for the main ticket). You should end up with something like this:

Repeat for all four tickets on the page:

Step 5: Make sure each ticket gets a new number

Now for the slightly hard bit. If you just try and complete your merge now, you'll get several pages of tickets. Each page will have four tickets on it. But all tickets on any page will have the same number. Each page will have a different number, but all the tickets on that page will have the same number. That's no good. You need each ticket to have a different number.

To get Word to put a different number on each ticket, you need to insert a special field to tell Word to look for the next number after the end of each ticket, rather than the end of each page.

Put your cursor just after the second <<M_1>> placeholder on the first ticket. Then click Rules > Next Record:

That will insert the 'Next Record' placeholder in your ticket, telling Word to get the next number ready for the second ticket. Your document should look something like this:

Now repeat for the second and third tickets. But not the fourth, because that's at the end of the page, so Word will skip to the next number anyway, because the next page always gets the next item in your merge list. Your document should look like this:

Step 6: Complete your merge to generate a document with lots of tickets, all with different numbers

Now click on Finish & Merge > Edit individual documents:

Click 'OK' on the next dialog, and you'll get a new document, with four tickets per page and each ticket will have a different number:

Print that out, and you are done!

Looking for an easier way? Use this tool to create numbered raffle tickets online, then print them on your computer:

42 comments:

Thank you for these instructions!! I'm using them to auto number my son's baseball team raffle tickets which we hand numbered last year (UGH!). I followed the instructions exactly but for some reason the numbering is starting at 2 every time. I did deselect the checkbox about the column headers which seems the obvious culprit. Any ideas? I'm using Word on a PC. Thanks!!

Got it to work! I modified my spreadsheet and added a header row with the words "Ticket Number" in field A1. Then I left the checkbox checked when I imported the spreadsheet to Word. That seemed to make it happy. THANK YOU!! This was so helpful!!

Thank you for these clear instructions. I have had the same problem as Mommy Vaughan and followed the suggestion. However, on re-opening the Word document, I have the dialogue box Invalid Merge Field. I have to use Task Manager to close down Word. I am using Word 2010. Maybe that is part or all of the problem. Any ideas please? I need to sort this by tomorrow night to print them on Monday!

Hi Cathy - I'm not sure what would cause that to be honest. Because (even with these instructions!) it can be quite hard to get Word to do this right, I did build a little web-based service to do the same thing. Have you tried that? http://app.raffleticketcreator.com

Hello Bruce, I seem to be having a different problem altogether. I created my ticket in word using logos and text boxes as needed, ticket looks great. I followed your very clear instructions but when I did the Finish & Merge I got this message, "You cannot include DATA, NEXT, NEXTIF, or SKIPIF fields in comments, headers, footers, footnotes or endnotes." I then click on OK and get this, "A field calculation error occurred in record 1. Bruce any help would be much appreciated. Thank you!!

I have done this twice now, getting flustered. The ticket part the person keeps has the correct sequential number on it, but the side that we keep has the same number on it for the whole page. What part am I missing, at first I did not uncheck the box, but this time I did but have the same number on the stub side that we keep with the person's name, etc

I have done this twice now, getting flustered. The ticket part the person keeps has the correct sequential number on it, but the side that we keep has the same number on it for the whole page. What part am I missing, at first I did not uncheck the box, but this time I did but have the same number on the stub side that we keep with the person's name, etc

Thanks for this - I used your instructions to set up numbered tickets for a Fundraiser function.In the past we printed the tickets and wrote numbers on manually. Now I have the template set up, as long as I keep the ticket graphic the same size I can just change the background next year.

I am using your instructions to create a page of tickets - the design has been created as a picture so I added a text box to "hold" the mail merge instructions but I keep getting the error message "You cannot include DATA, NEXT, NEXTIF, or SKIPIF fields in comments, headers, footers, footnotes or endnotes." I have not included any of these but I'm wondering if it's because I've attempted to insert it in a text box. Is there an easy way to do this? TIA

Hi - are you creating your own tickets using the instructions on this page? If so, you can of course change the font and everything else in your Word document. If you are using the Raffle Ticket Creator app (app.raffleticketcreator.com) then you can't change the font size ... you'll just need to tinker with the exact words that you are including in order to get them to fit on the page. Hope that helps!

Thank you so much for this! These instructions were perfect and clear, and I got it all done, except when I go to print. It prints out 1 per page. I have Word 2007, and tried printing out on letter size with 4 per page, but then it prints them all very tiny in the corners. Can you help me? Thanks :)

Annabelle - You need the tickets in the top slot of each page to run from 1 to 167, then the second slot down to be 168 - 335, then have 336 - 500 in the third slot. Easiest way to achieve that would be to create a your list of numbers in Step 3 in Excel so it runs as 1,168,336,2,169,337 ... etc., like this:

Good morning! Directions are clear for sure but when i go to merge the first ticket is one but the second number on the raffle ticket is two. i have four raffle tickets per page the first three are messed up but the forth is correct all the way down to 500. Any ideas? i have tried with a header and without a header. i even made the first number with a formula. it does work with out putting next record but like you said it is four tickets with the same number and that would use a ton of ink. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

If the second number on your raffle ticket is one higher than the first number, you must have accidentally put the <> tag after the first number (causing the next number, on the same ticket, to increase by one). You only need the <> after the second number on each ticket, so the next ticket gets a new number. (But you don't need it on the final ticket on the **page**, because the next **page** automatically gets a new number)

I am getting my tickets to number on one side of it. However, I am needing my tickets to have the number on each side, but one side will not number. I have tried several times and it will not number on both sides. I am using an avery template that is printing 10 tickets per page, stub and tearable ticket. But the stub will not number while the tearable ticket will.